Posts tagged ‘Bob Rozakis’

Verheiden, Springer and McLaughlin bring the Speedy story to a close in this issue.

The actor has kept a tail on Speedy, but when he finally sees her dying brother, he realizes that no one is trying to embarrass him. That he has just been a jerk. The two brothers reconcile.

Speedy’s series comes to an end, teasing another case to come. Roy returns in the next Green Arrow annual, but we don’t see him working for this agency again.

Morgan le Fay gets the better of Etrigan in this chapter of Grant, Pacella and Wray’s Demon series.

Things are not looking good for Glenda and Randu either. They have followed a false trail, lead by the Philosopher’s Stone, and wind up entering Hell. Etrigan winds up imprisoned by Morgan le Fay, but she does not pay attention to Jason Blood. At this point, the Demon and Jason exist separately, and Jason sneaks up behind Morgan.

A dog sealed in unbreakable plastic and a man holding up the subway with a water pistol full of gasoline are the main problems that Hero Hotline have to deal with in this chapter, by Rozakis, DeStefano and Wray.

But the best moment is when the country singer, rescued in the previous issue, shows her appreciation, avoiding the muscly guy and going for the geek who actually saved her.

Phantom Lady breaks into Guerreheart’s estate in this chapter, by Strazewski, Austen and Martin.

She fights off dogs and guards, and hits the bad guy right in the face with her wrist laser. She gets the picture that is being used to blackmail her father. We do not see it, but Dee does, and is shocked.

Wild Dog continues his spree of vengeance in this chapter, by Collins, Beatty and Nyberg.

He heads after the big dealers, after getting their names from the gangster boy. Two headbangers have come to buy drugs, but get held as hostages by the dealers when Wild Dog breaks in. Wild Dog kills all but one of the drug lords, and the headbangers run for their lives.

Phantom Lady looks pretty proud of herself on the cover of Action 639.

Speedy shows that actors are not as impressive fighters in person in this chapter by Verheiden, Williams and McLaughlin.

Speedy tracks the actors brother to an AIDS hospice, which is being picketed by right-wingers.

The Demon is not the main character in this installment of Grant, Pacella and Wray’s story. Glenda and Randu are in focus, as they follow the Philosopher’s Stone to Wookey Hole.

There, as Merlin suffers, Morgan le Fay is restored to life, without her hand. But Etrigan is not completely absent, watching over her return.

A few different storylines are being followed through the Hero Hotline series, by Rozakis, DeStefano and Wray. A country music star has been kidnapped, and there is still that cat plotline.

But the story in focus this issue is a hostage taking at a liquor store.

Superman begins another, very brief, storyline before Action Comics Weekly ends. As before, Stern, Swan and Anderson are the creative team. The hero deals with racism against Quraci immigrants in the US.

Dee Tyler gets a good idea of what is bothering her father, the Attorney General, in this Phantom Lady installment, by Strazewski, Austen and Martin.

Her father is hosting a costume ball that night, and Phantom Lady proves to be a popular choice, making things easy for Dee, who follows some men to her father’s office, and learns that he is bring blackmailed.

Collins, Beatty and Nyberg continue with Wild Dog’s anti-crack campaign, hunting down the gangster boy who enticed the young kid into delivering drugs.

Wild Dog catches up to him right after the guy has had sex, which leaves him in a very vulnerable position. A few shots to the crotch is all it takes for him to give up the name of the man above him.

Speedy continues his search for a missing man in this Verheiden. Williams and McLaughlin story.

Roy goes to question the man’s brother, and action movie star. When Speedy tells the man his brother has AIDS, the man accuses Speedy of lying to create a scandal.

Grant, Pacella and Wray continue the Demon story, as Jason Blood calls on Etrigan to fight the monster that emerges from Sillbury Hill.

Glenda Mark and Randu Singh also head to England, concerned about Jason. None of the three realize that they are doing exactly what Morgan le Fay intended, but we learn this, as does Merlin, as he is being tortured.

Rozakis, DeStefano and Schaffenberger give the new guy a hero name in this Hero Hotline chapter, as he heads out on his first mission, to get a cat out of a tree.

Nancy and Sluggo appear to cameo as Hot Shot (as he comes to be known) shoots fire at the poor cat. It works. But geez.

Darkseid heads back to Apokolips, to have fun torturing and tormenting the Consortium. Superman is left to address his followers, insisting that they should not treat him as a god.

It doesn’t really work. We see this religious cult again following the Death of Superman.

Phantom Lady continues her hunt for Guerreheart, the man causing problems for her father, in this chapter, by Strazewski, Austen and Martin.

Phantom Lady’s holographic images prove quite useful as she stands up against armed men. She even manages to capture one.

Wild Dog is in a bad mood in this story, by Collins, Beatty and Nyberg, after the shooting of the child. While his friends console him, and debate the situation, Wild Dog decides the time is right for drastic action.

It’s a breezy and bouncy tale, as young Billy Lefferts, who has the power to emit fire, starts a new job at Hero Hotline. The name of the company is pretty self-explanatory. Call for a hero when you need one.

Stern, Swan and Anderson have Superman helpless against Darkseid. Having empowered both the Superman worhsippers, and the Consortium, out to destroy them, Darkseid is not pleased that the Consortium fared so poorly against Superman. So he sends them off to be tortured on Apokolips.

Strazewski, Austen and Martin have Phantom Lady hit the clubs in her second chapter. Her costume pretty much assures her entry anywhere.

But the club owner she questions proves to be of little help in finding out what is troubling her father. We do get to see some of her gear in this story, wrist lasers, and holographic images of herself.

Collins, Beatty and Nyberg helm this chapter of the Wild Dog story, as the young boy Jack offered a job to gets lured by the bigger money in the drug trade.

As a result, the boy is in a crack house when it gets raided by the police, and is shot during the siege.

The Yellow Peri makes her final pre-Crisis appearance in Action 567 (May 1985), in a story by Rozakis, Schaffenberger and Hunt..

With her husband Alvin, Loretta, the Yellow Peri, has opened a housing development protected from the vagaries of the climate by her magic, and Lois and Clark come out to investigate.

Peri uses her magic to create rapidly harvestable food, but as they eat it, they discover that it makes people speak the truth. It begins as Clark reveals that he is Superman. Revelations spiral, until Loretta hears Alvin admit that he never loved her, and married her on a dare. When Superman and Lois wind up preparing to wed, Peri gets jealous, and things go crazy.

The story is clearly written for comedy. And I do enjoy the bit when Superman tries to get rid of the book, but can’t. Loretta no longer wants it, but Superman finds it cannot be destroyed. He seals it in lead, which causes all its effects to vanish, for some reason.

The end of the story teases the return of the book, and therefore, the Yellow Peri, but Crisis wiped all that out.

She does appear again, though not for a very long time, making her next appearance in the miniseries 52.

Alexander the Great, aka the Planeteer returns, now calling himself King Alexander, in the Rozakis, Schaffenberger and Hunt story in Action 562 (Dec. 84).

The story has a subplot about Steve Lombard,who was fired from WGBS by Morgan Edge in the pages of Superman. He is starring in a production of Damn Yankees, and has sent opening night tickets to Clark, Lana, Jimmy and Perry White. Perry actually winds up stopping a pair of robbers during the show, and his wife Alice gets a small role.

Queen Bee gets most of the attention in the story. She has been causing magnetic anomalies throughout Metropolis. She has found an immortality serum that needs a constant recharge of magnetic energy to allow her to stay mobile.

And who should also be back in Metropolis but the magnetically powered Alexander?

They hit it off, and Alexander thinks its true love and world conquest, unaware that he is being drugged, and his power drained, by Zazzala.

Mind you, even when Superman explains to him what is going on, he just chooses not to believe it. He has fallen hard. Superman uses the couple’s magnetism against them.

This is the final appearance of Alexander the Great aka Planeteer aka King Alexander, and the Queen Bee is next seen in the pages of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The Yellow Peri, a magic user that had caused problems for Superboy a couple of years earlier in his book, returns to cause trouble for Superman in the Rozakis, Schaffenberger and Hunt story in Action 559 (Sept. 84).

Loretta is now married to Alvin Grant, a real creep who married her to win a bet with his friends. her magic book just comes out of the sky, crashing through their ceiling one day. With the book in her hands, she can make pretty much anything happen. Alvin thinks of all the money he can make off of her.

She believes that they are going around being helpful, stopping disasters and cleaning up polluted areas, but Alvin is exploiting everything to make money. It’s not illegal, but it goes against the normal code of heroes. Superman is watchful.

Trying to get him out of the way, Alvin makes it look like Superman is trying to kill him, in hopes that Loretta will kill Superman. But that doesn’t work.

It’s like a bizarre version of Bewitched, but not a funny one, though I think it’s trying to be.

Not having broken any laws, nothing happens to Alvin, and the couple return a few months down the road.